Seagate Barracuda making chirping noise and won't mount

Question

So recently at night my barracuda drive (2TB) started making chirping noises. As if something was stuck and kept trying to reset itself. Since it was at night I turned off the home server. Now the hard drive won't mount and it makes chirping noises. It can, however, be detected by Ubuntu (14.04). Unfortunately the drive is not passing its self test.

What are my options here? Can I still save this drive? I already purchased a new 2TB drive in the hopes that I can bring it to my faculty's repair service where they can transfer the drive image to the new drive.

Answer 1

there are two typical drive failure noises:

• a cyclical 'clicking', as the heads move then reset... "click, click, click" etc...

• a chirping noise - usually due to the motor attempting to boot/spin, but failing.

Either one is a definite hardware 'code red' situation... If you CAN get it mounted, copy EVERYTHING of value off immediately.

• do not delay.
• do not shut it down
• do not move it
• copy everything off that you can, as IF it mounts, this will likely be the last time it does.

You do have a backup of it already, don't you?

Hard drives are NOT reliable. Having only a single copy is not smart. Having only a single backup is only marginally better.. You need at least 3 copies to be relatively secure in data. (unless of course it's data you can afford to be without).